Ian Felice

Ian Felice is the beating heart of The Felice Brothers. Formerly with Simone (but on production duties here) and latterly with James (“Real talent”), the siblings have made some of the most rollockingly mournful music that’s ever come out of The Catskills. Ian Felice has long been the voice of the band as well as the source of a lot of the humour. Who could forget ‘Frankie’s Gun’? “Frankie you’re a friend of mine, Got me off a bender after long-legged Brenda died”. This time he’s solo. And very personal. The death of his stepfather. The fears of becoming a father himself. And more than a little sense of the disconcerting nature of modern life, including Trump’s America. With titles such as ‘In Memoriam’, ‘Mt. Despair’, and ‘In The Final Reckoning’, the tone is set. But it’s never miserable. There’s a lyrical playfulness. “Well the aliens landed on election day, And they stole your mother’s lingerie”. Plenty of stories. “I was squeezed in the back of a yellow cab, Between ruin and fate, Both armed to the teeth and more beneath”. And some arresting images. “I was walking down by the tracks where the communist bees relax, In their hives of golden wax when I thought I should run”. With Simone on drums and James on piano this almost counts as a reunion album. But not quite. It’s unmistakably Ian Felice’s album. In all its wonderful, mournful glory.